[Orchardsmith]

I have trouble believing someone who doesn't raise soybeans. In the cattle business you are what is called someone who is all hat and no cattle.

Please make sense. I’m not in the cattle business. I have neither hat nor cattle. I went to a USDA cash markets page. Feel free.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

Please make sense. I’m not in the cattle business. I have neither hat nor cattle. I went to a USDA cash markets page. Feel free.

That saying means you have nothing to do with the business, no experience in the business, no understanding of the business and are just all talk. In this case the business is commodity crop growing of soybeans. You just proved my point by saying you "went to a web page" Instant expert on farming.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

“the bot”?

Once again, your ignorance is showing. BOT typically refers to the Chicago Board of Trade where , you know...or I guess you don't know, futures and options for various commodities (like, you know... I guess you don't) like soybeans are traded. It merged with the CME in 2007. The more you know... BTW, I worked at CME in the pits back in the 1970s before trading moved online and it was still open outcry. So yeah, I think I know just a tad more about commodity and futures trading than your "looking at a webpage" expertise.

 

[HDRider]

Almost everyone in my Sunday School class is a farmer.

Hearing them talk, the price they get is not the big complaint.

The big complaint is how high input costs have got since 2000 and especially hitting highs in the late 20-teens.

Yes, there are buyers for everything they raise.

John Deere Combine

 

[HDRider]

Farmer's costs are 2.2 times higher now than 2000.

The selling price of soybeans is also about 2.2 times higher than 2000.

 

[HDRider]

The November 2025 soybean futures contract closed at $10.14 per bushel on September 26, 2025.

 

[Wanda]

There are no beans delivered to the CBOT. The cash price that is paid to actual sellers of physical soybeans is the CBOT price plus or minus the basis for the location they are sold at. It is a simple way to balance of supply and demand.

 

[bacgly]

• First Half of 2025: 361 Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases were filed, a 13% increase over the same period in 2024.
• First Quarter (Q1): There were 88 Chapter 12 filings, nearly double the 45 recorded during the first quarter of 2024.
• Second Quarter (Q2): The number of Chapter 12 filings increased in the second quarter, although the overall number remains low by historical standards.

Other factors influencing farm bankruptcies in 2025:

• Worsening Credit Conditions: Lenders reported lower repayment rates on farm loans and an overall decline in the availability of agricultural lending funds in the first quarter of 2025.
• Financial Strain: In its September 2025 farm income forecast, the USDA projected that farm sector debt would increase to $591.8 billion by the end of 2025.
• Historical Comparison: While the increase in 2025 is significant, bankruptcy numbers remain low compared to the historical peak of 5,788 filings in 1987.

 

[bacgly]

All the signs of trumps tariffs are easy to see. For those with a brain.
A large part of the pressure stems from the fact that “commodity prices are back at levels where they were in the 2018-2019 era,” said Scott Stiles, Instructor and Extension Economist with Arkansas State University.
The last monthly report from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) showed that tractor sales were down 13 percent year over year and combine sales were down 48 percent for the same period, Stiles said.

 

[bacgly]

Farmers across the country have fallen on hard times in the wake of a number of President Donald Trump's policies, despite being one of his most loyal voting groups.
Even in states which voted overwhelmingly in Trump's favor in the 2024 Presidential Election, farmers are concerned about their future, and bankruptcy filings have soared this year.

 

[Fishindude]

Harvest is well underway around here. Despite a rather serious lack of rainfall since about June, yields are pretty good and the farmers around here are doing okay.

 

[kinderfeld]

IF you support the tariffs, you better danged well be growing your own food, using stuff up, wearing it out, making it do, or doing without.

People would be better off to do that regardless.

Because the last time we tried this particular type of tariff ploy it triggered the Great Depression.

The great depression wasn't triggered by tariffs.

 

[HDRider]

1. Farmers are in a deep crisis due to a combination of record agricultural debt, disruptive trade wars, financial consolidation, inclement weather, reduced federal programs, increased input costs, and low market prices
2. Farming is a business with high overhead and very thin margins, even when there are minimal disruptions
3. A similar bailout six years ago only accelerated the consolidation trend, allowing bigger farms to take bigger risks with the expectation they won't be allowed to fail
4. The number of agricultural bankruptcies has spiked, and the industry is saying it will likely need a new government bailout
5. The vast majority of agricultural output comes from large-scale family farms that are multi-million dollar corporations
6. Small family farms (generating under $350,000 annually) collectively account for only 17% of total agricultural production
7. The claim that most U.S. agriculture is done on family farms is a "convenient lie," as the official classification includes insignificant operations like Christmas tree lots
8. The struggles of small farmers are used as an effective marketing tool for industry lobbying, creating optics that lead to government support
9. The majority of financial relief and benefits from lobbying ultimately flow to the largest producers, not the small farmers voicing their concerns
10. The current assistance system is highly skewed: just 7% of farmers received 63% of all financial assistance provided between 2019 and 2023
11. There is a rapidly growing share of institutional farms owned by investment firms, making farmland an attractive investment class
12. Farming has fundamentally changed from a business of making food to one of land speculation, where appreciating land value provides far more income than growing crops
13. A major challenge is a worker shortage, as low wages and difficult conditions, along with heightened immigration enforcement, have made it harder to find farm laborers
14. Government funding is set to increase with new incentives next year, but the delayed start is "filtering out the smaller farms" that cannot wait
15. A major cause of bankruptcies is frozen government programs, with dozens of existing contracts being withheld indefinitely after farmers had already made investments to qualify
16. China, historically the largest international buyer of U.S. soybeans, has stopped purchasing American soybeans and has strengthened trade ties with Brazil
17. Foreign countries are prioritizing food security and are making major investments to find alternatives to American food imports
18. A major problem is the trade wars, as roughly 20% of U.S. food production is sold abroad, mainly to Canada, Mexico, and China

From

 

[kinderfeld]

Me, I would have got the Euros, Canada, and everyone in my camp to attack China with tariffs. Sadly, I don't they would have done it or done it halfheartedly at best.

Exactly. Look at what's going on with Ukraine. Russia is attacking a fellow Euro. And for all the tough talk and posturing, fellow European nations still buy Russian oil and gas.

 

[HDRider]

So far no one on HT has suggested anything better than tariffs to level the global playing field.

Tariffs win by default

 

[HDRider]

Theodore Roosevelt's speech titled "Citizenship in a Republic," delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910 -

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who strives, who dares greatly, who perseveres, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

From the speech, often referred to as "The Man in the Arena."

 

[Mike in Ohio]

1. Farmers are in a deep crisis due to a combination of record agricultural debt, disruptive trade wars, financial consolidation, inclement weather, reduced federal programs, increased input costs, and low market prices
2. Farming is a business with high overhead and very thin margins, even when there are minimal disruptions
3. A similar bailout six years ago only accelerated the consolidation trend, allowing bigger farms to take bigger risks with the expectation they won't be allowed to fail
4. The number of agricultural bankruptcies has spiked, and the industry is saying it will likely need a new government bailout
5. The vast majority of agricultural output comes from large-scale family farms that are multi-million dollar corporations
6. Small family farms (generating under $350,000 annually) collectively account for only 17% of total agricultural production
7. The claim that most U.S. agriculture is done on family farms is a "convenient lie," as the official classification includes insignificant operations like Christmas tree lots
8. The struggles of small farmers are used as an effective marketing tool for industry lobbying, creating optics that lead to government support
9. The majority of financial relief and benefits from lobbying ultimately flow to the largest producers, not the small farmers voicing their concerns
10. The current assistance system is highly skewed: just 7% of farmers received 63% of all financial assistance provided between 2019 and 2023
11. There is a rapidly growing share of institutional farms owned by investment firms, making farmland an attractive investment class
12. Farming has fundamentally changed from a business of making food to one of land speculation, where appreciating land value provides far more income than growing crops
13. A major challenge is a worker shortage, as low wages and difficult conditions, along with heightened immigration enforcement, have made it harder to find farm laborers
14. Government funding is set to increase with new incentives next year, but the delayed start is "filtering out the smaller farms" that cannot wait
15. A major cause of bankruptcies is frozen government programs, with dozens of existing contracts being withheld indefinitely after farmers had already made investments to qualify
16. China, historically the largest international buyer of U.S. soybeans, has stopped purchasing American soybeans and has strengthened trade ties with Brazil
17. Foreign countries are prioritizing food security and are making major investments to find alternatives to American food imports
18. A major problem is the trade wars, as roughly 20% of U.S. food production is sold abroad, mainly to Canada, Mexico, and China

From

Good video. A couple points of "contention".

1. In our area (smaller farms under 200ish acres aren't getting sold to institutional agriculture. They are getting broken up into smaller parcels and sold to people wanting a home in the country or a vacation home. This means that if you have a farm and adjacent land becomes on the market you try and buy it or you may never get another chance. At our peak we had 6 mortgages. Our farm is surrounded by 17 adjacent properties. Only 2 of those are of interest to us because the others are smaller parcels with homes on them. Both are pasture. One parcel is 18 acres and the other is 30 acres. I don't know what we would do if either of them went on the market. I guess it would depend on price and interest rates.

2. I'm not sympathetic towards farmers who take on more debt, primarily to purchase new equipment because they benefit from 100 percent bonus depreciation and/or section 179 deductions.Other than purchasing real estate we have always shunned debt. Perhaps some of those farmers should fail. We've always avoided government programs other than CAUV. I can see where it might be seductive to many when FSA comes through after a major storm and offers 1% loans to repair damage after a storm. One example in my case was after the torrential rains from what had been hurricane Ivan hit our area. Why should farmers get this kind of benefit when other businesses and individuals do not? The answer of course is lobbying.

I'd write more but I'm beat from stacking wood and other chores. I'm taking a shower and a nap before we have supper.

 

[Orchardsmith]

Once again, your ignorance is showing. BOT typically refers to the Chicago Board of Trade where , you know...or I guess you don't know, futures and options for various commodities (like, you know... I guess you don't) like soybeans are traded. It merged with the CME in 2007. The more you know... BTW, I worked at CME in the pits back in the 1970s before trading moved online and it was still open outcry. So yeah, I think I know just a tad more about commodity and futures trading than your "looking at a webpage" expertise.

Wow. I never claimed any expertise. These days, when you write bot it means robot, but if you meant the Board of Trade, you would have written BOT and I would have understood because I’ve been there. So what’s showing is your defensiveness. Congrats on working on the Merc. That would have been interesting. Somebody said there were no buyers, but I pulled up cash quotes to show that there were buyers at the prices I listed that day.
Consider maybe addressing the substance sometime.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

Wow. I never claimed any expertise. These days, when you write bot it means robot, but if you meant the Board of Trade, you would have written BOT and I would have understood because I’ve been there. So what’s showing is your defensiveness. Congrats on working on the Merc. That would have been interesting. Somebody said there were no buyers, but I pulled up cash quotes to show that there were buyers at the prices I listed that day.
Consider maybe addressing the substance sometime.

When you make assertions, you are claiming some level of knowledge and expertise. It only came out in a later comment that the sum total of your expertise is having "visited a website". I'm not defensive. I'm offended by someone like yourself making pronouncements about things they don't have a clue about.

When you proclaim "there are buyers" because once again you looked at a website, you continue to exhibit your ignorance. A standard soybean contract is 5,000 bushels and a mini contract is 1,000 bushels. When a producer or processor sells a contract it is called hedging. 5,000 bushels represents just under 100 acres of production. For a farmer like the one I mentioned earlier in the thread, they would have to sell 26 contracts to fully hedge their production. That is only one farmer. Other sales might be from buyers closing out positions, speculators, etc. You have to look at all sorts of variables associated with the futures market, for example open interest ( in the ball park of 1,200 contracts for November) and whether it's a front month you are looking at or a more distant month. The current front month is November because September is almost over so October moves to cash markets. You are seeing lots of contracts being traded but that is mostly speculators and day traders. You also have to look at export sales (the majority of which are to China and which currently stand at zero this year}. The outlook for soybean sales through the end of the year (all things being equal) can only be described as dismal. The only thing holding up prices is the hope that there will be some kind of bailout for farmers.

There is always a buyer for a commodity... at some price. In April of 2020, oil was selling at minus $37.63 a barrel. Producers were paying buyers to take their production. There was no storage. It will be interesting to see what happens when storage capacity for beans (and corn) runs out. I don't expect things to get as ugly as oil but it won't be pretty.

I'm getting bored doing your homework for you so go RTFM and do your own homework before spouting off with your "info"

 

[bacgly]

So far no one on HT has suggested anything better than tariffs to level the global playing field.

Tariffs win by default

that's bs. Everything was just fine until the current liar was elected. whatever happened to the wingers big cry about deficits? about inflation? the right has never before worried about the "global playing field"... they only do that when their leaders are going bust....
The president's net approval rating is -17%,
down 0.2 points since last week.
39% approve, 56% disapprove, 4% not sure